BEAUTY GIANTS: L’ORÉAL – VINCENT BOINAY


Beauty tech and sustainability top of the agenda for L’Oréal in recovery mode


Acquiring ModiFace in 2018 was just one milestone in L’Oréal Group’s decade-long crusade to remain at the forefront of beauty tech innovation. However, in this exclusive interview, L’Oréal General Manager for Travel Retail Worldwide Vincent Boinay tells Charlotte Turner how sustainability also remains integral to the group’s overriding ambition to create beauty that ‘moves the world’.


“D


ue to the unprecedented crisis facing the aviation


industry created by Covid, which we must caveat by saying it is different from one part of the world to another and from international to domestic traffic, travel retail is still the most affected channel of distribution for L’Oréal...and the


recovery might


takes months,” Vincent Boinay, General Manager for Travel Retail Worldwide tells TRBusiness in an exclusive interview. “So, we are focusing on our


long-term fundamentals and strategy, which explains why we are so invested in beauty tech and in our sustainability commitments for 2030.” Interestingly, Boinay believes the


Covid-19 crisis provides the leading beauty group with an opportunity to actually speed up some of its plans connected with beauty tech. “This crisis is an opportunity to


accelerate our plans to create ‘beauty that moves the world’: the purpose of the L’Oréal Group. This is why we will never change. We will adapt, yes of course. For me, what’s great to see, is the agility, the adaptability and the resilience of all our teams around the world. But it’s not just our teams, it’s also our retailer partners, because I do not underestimate the difficulties they are facing right now. “We fight together in this


situation. We are not out of the woods yet, but at least we are seeing signs of improvement in some regions [in particular China] and that’s why we are using this time to really develop in beauty tech and bolster our sustainability commitments.” Boinay certainly puts a positive spin on what has been a dire situation


OCTOBER 2020


for all travel retail stakeholders, not least suppliers such as L’Oréal. Many suppliers have made their grievances with their retail partners


clear in


recent months. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, numerous have


complained about


suppliers profit


margins being squeezed and a lack of communication with their direct buyer contacts.


Partnerships ‘intact’ Boinay would not be drawn on the specificities or the current status of L’Oréal’s partnerships with retailers and said that while there have been ‘difficulties’, partnerships remain intact. “I mean, clearly, it’s not the first


time that we are facing difficulties,” he says. “But since the very beginning, I must say that we have been in very close contact with all our retail partners around the world to assess, to understand, to acknowledge the situation, and to anticipate solutions for the future. “I do not mean that it has been easy


for all of us. Not at all. But at least, it has been extremely constructive and


this is why we are probably one of the first companies to bounce back. “We have been able to put new


products on shelf despite the very low air traffic. We could take the example of the new My Way fragrance from Armani and a new animation for Pure Shots from YSL among other new beauty tech initiatives.” Of course, it is by no means ‘business as usual’ for L’Oréal.


Above: L’Oréal has been able to accelerate plans to implement more beauty tech solutions.


“Due to the devastating situation created by Covid – which we must caveat by saying is quite different from one part of the world to another, certainly if I look at it from the L’Oréal Group perspective – travel retail is still by far the most affected channel of distribution, and it might last for some months.”


Vincent Boinay,


General Manager for Travel Retail Worldwide, L’Oréal Group


TRBUSINESS 49

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